Fossil Friday Roundup: August 17, 2018

Featured Image: Spinosaurus aegypticus model. From Henderson (2018), CC-BY.

Papers (All Open Access):

• Specifying the External Impact on Fluvial Lowland Evolution: The Last Glacial Tisza (Tisa) Catchment in Hungary and Serbi (Quaternary)
• Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene (PNAS)
• Palaeoecology of the Upper Tournaisian (Mississippian) crinoidal limestones from South Belgium (Geologica Belgica)
• Evolutionary history of plant hosts and fungal symbionts predicts the strength of mycorrhizal mutualism (Communications Biology)
• Palaeozoic giant dragonflies were hawker predators (Scientific Reports)
• Beetle Pollination of Cycads in the Mesozoic (Current Biology)
• A Late Cretaceous amber biota from central Myanmar (Nature Communications)
• The shark-tuna dichotomy: why tuna lay tiny eggs but sharks produce large offspring (RSOS)
• A giant dapediid from the Late Triassic of Switzerland and insights into neopterygian phylogeny (RSOS)
• Fossil snakes (Squamata, Serpentes) from the tar pits of Venezuela: taxonomic, palaeoenvironmental, and palaeobiogeographical implications for the North of South America during the Cenozoic/Quaternary boundary (PeerJ)
• The palate and choanae structure of the Susisuchus anatoceps (Crocodyliformes, Eusuchia): phylogenetic implications (PeerJ)
• A New Fossil Species of Boa Linnaeus, 1758 (Squamata, Boidae), from the Pleistocene of Marie-Galante Island (French West Indies) (JVP)
• First report of Leptonectes (Ichthyosauria: Leptonectidae) from the Lower Jurassic (Pliensbachian) of Asturias, northern Spain (PalaeoE)
• Description of a multitaxic bone assemblage from the Upper Triassic Post Quarry of Texas (Dockum Group) including a new small basal dinosauriform taxon (Historia Natural)
• A buoyancy, balance and stability challenge to the hypothesis of a semi-aquatic Spinosaurus Stromer, 1915 (Dinosauria: Theropoda) (PeerJ)
• The Endocranial Cavity of Oviraptorosaur Dinosaurs and the Increasingly Complex, Deep History of the Avian Brain (Brain, Behavior and Evolution)
• Testosterone in ancient hair from an extinct species (Palaeontology)
• Correction: Body-size structure of Central Iberian mammal fauna reveals semidesertic conditions during the middle Miocene Global Cooling Event (PLOS ONE)
• The divergence and dispersal of early perissodactyls as evidenced by early Eocene equids from Asia (Communications Biology)
• Possible predator avoidance behaviour of hominins in South Africa (South African Journal of Science)
• The evolutionary roles of nutrition selection and dietary quality in the human brain size and encephalization (Nutrire)
• Ribcage measurements indicate greater lung capacity in Neanderthals and Lower Pleistocene hominins compared to modern humans (Communications Biology)
• Acheulean technology and landscape use at Dawadmi, central Arabia (PLOS ONE)
• Microevolutionary processes impact macroevolutionary patterns (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
• Rethinking Living Fossils (BioScience)

PrePrints and PostPrints:

• Modern botanical analogue of endangered Yak (Bos mutus) dung from India: Plausible linkage with living and extinct megaherbivores (bioRXiv)
• Tertiary dentine frequencies in extant great apes and fossil hominins (PeerJ)

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Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources:

Meetings:

• 78th Annual Meeting, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP), October 17–20, 2018, Albuquerque, New Mexico (Link)
• 2018 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, November 4–7, 2018, Indianapolis, Indiana (Link)
• 1st Palaeontological Virtual Congress, December 1–15, 2018 (Link)
• North American Paleontological Convention June 23–27 2019 (Link)

Events:

• National Fossil Day 2018: Events, Part 1 (PLOS Paleontology Community)

Resources:

• Resources for DACA & Undocumented Students (Time Scavengers)

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News and Views:

Animals and Anatomy:

• Lower Decorah trilobites (Equatorial Minnesota)
• Caelestiventus hanseni, the new Triassic pterosaur from Utah (SVPOW)
• Introducing Caelestiventus hanseni (Letters from Gondwana)
• Fossil Friday – ceratopsian horn core (Valley of the Mastodon)
• Caudal vertebrae of Haplocanthosaurus delfsi (SVPOW)
• Bigfoot from Wyoming: The largest dinosaur foot found yet (RMDRC Paleo Lab)
• New Research Refutes Claims That Spinosaurus Was Semi-Aquatic (Inside the Royal Tyrrell Museum)
• These labmade fossils could reveal how dinosaurs really looked (Link)
• Those terrific pelagornithids (Mark Witton)
• The Pig Family: The Strange Case of the Sulawesi Pig-Deer (Synapsida)
• Episode 41 – The Evolution of Whales (Common Descent)

Methods and Musings:

• Scientists trace atmospheric rise in CO2 during deglaciation to deep Pacific Ocean (Link)
• Learning from Past Climate Changes (Letters from Gondwana)
• CT scanning a caudal vertebra of Diplodocus (SVPOW)
• How long would it take to buy Elsevier instead of APCs or subscriptions? (SVPOW)
• Episode 93: The History of Palaeontological Outreach (Palaeocast)
• Flugsaurier 2018 – Los Angeles (Musings of a Clumsy Palaeontologist)

Museums, Folks and Fieldwork:

• Gabriel-Philip Santos, Collections Manager and Outreach Coordinator (Time Scavengers)
• The Discovery of Canada’s First Known Meat-Eating Dinosaur (Inside the Royal Tyrrell Museum)
• Working on the world’s best preserved dinosaur: One year later (Alberta Culture and Tourism)

Art, Books, Culture, Fun:

• Dinosaur Vs. Mommy by Bob Shea (The Prehistoric Review)
• Vintageish Dinosaur Art: Investigate Dinosauriërs (LITC)

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